MS Golwalkar, BJP’s guruji, wasn’t closeted about his admiration for Hitler. His ideas of Hindutva and Hitler’s ethnic cleansing had much in common. Both believed in the creation of modern nation states with only pure races—one by expelling Jews, the other by desiring a similar fate for Muslims. Their vision had no place for multiculturalism, and progress, in their view, required absolute homogenization.
This isn’t as contradictory to Modi’s Israel romance as it may seem. Golwalkar did not have a soft corner for Christians over Jews, but for majoritarianism on cultural grounds. The theory, in fact, fits perfectly in present-day Israel’s treatment of Palestinian Muslims. It is no surprise that India’s right-wing has the highest respect for not just Israeli technological advancements but also for the nature of Israel’s society. Hindutva’s father of the nation, Veer Savarkar, wrote rather flatteringly: ‘the Jews are brave and intelligent people… although their State looks like a child before our great state of Bharat, we must emulate its example.’
